A Town Called Aberleigh
by dragontatoes
Summary: Aberleigh is a small town full of stories. Merida's not keen on it quite yet, Rapunzel's just found the world she lost years ago, and Hiccup finds there's even more to discover after the dragons have all moved in. This modern crossover involves much more than just Brave and HTTYD. Tangled and ROTG, and possibly others will be included. Slow burn
1. Chapter 1

I've promised myself I'd never write fanfiction. Also, that if I did go crazy and write some, I'd never post it. But here I am. Doing this. But this dumb plot has been building all over itself in my head for pretty much a year and it's getting too long and complicated not to write down, plus I'd like to show what I've thought up to friends and whatever. Basically this is just me trying to make a big modern crossover world of all of my favorite characters and their dumb lives together. So yay. Enjoy. If it's possible to enjoy this crap. why is this so embarrassing_  
_

* * *

She hadn't had the last week to get into the forest, it didn't matter that it looked like rain. Let it rain. Some cold air and alone time is all Merida needed.

Since she didn't have a proper target to use, a tree would have to do. Preferably a mossy one, the arrows didn't sink into hard wood very well and with only a dozen at her disposal, Merida couldn't afford to damage or lose any. She hated that. Even to do the one thing that could help her unwind, she still had to take precautions. Still, the moment the first arrow met its target, she instantly felt better. Every thunk she heard shot one more stressor out of her mind. The first round was just for everyone she'd been burning to punch lately.

Only four rounds, she'd told herself; but turning back towards home as the drizzle grew heavier, Merida slowly traced her finger down on an arrow again. Her fingers had begun to ache and she half expected Angus to whine at her before remembering she might never hear him again.  
"One more. Just _one_ more."

Merida turned back on her target, adjusted for the longer distance, and heard something wrong at the release. A torn fletching was left in her hand.  
Shite.  
Her head whipped back up at the sound of a yelp, in the direction of the arrow.  
SHITE.

Her thoughts and sprinting legs both ran frantically. It could have been an animal. An animal instead of a person would make her feel just as awful, but at least she might not get into trouble for it. _Please just be a spooked bird!_ She looked frantically around where it seemed to have landed. She _never_ missed. Stupid fletchings, stupid arrow. Where was the stupid arrow? What did the stupid arrow hit?

"This yours?" She turned to see the stupid arrow held out to her by a very unsettled and rain-soaked boy.

"I didn't hit you, did I?"

"Called it a little close, but I'm fine." The front of his brown hair stuck to his forehead, making him look as unimpressive as the damaged arrow he handed back. "But, you know, this part of the forest restricts hunting."

Her father had been dabbling in the city council and had complained to the family about the older and more powerful members, placing restrictions on activities all over the area, including the forests. "I wasn't hunting, just shooting. And from what I've heard, the hunting laws are a bit wishy-washy around here."

He looked at her for a moment before asking "You wouldn't happen to know Fergus Dunbroch, would you?"

"He's my dad."

The boy nodded, not surprised. "Yeah, I thought so."

She already knew she wouldn't like this kid. "Why do you know my father?"

"He works with mine. Sort of. My dad's said he doesn't agree on a lot of the newer regulations on hunting, dragons, all that stuff." It was unnatural how skinny this guy managed to look while wearing a hoodie. "And you all came here from Scotland, right?"

She only answered with a questioning,"Yeah..."  
He was definitely from her school, always sitting next to the giant blonde guy in Biology (well, the _other_ one. MacGuffin was next to her).

"Your name is something Haddock. Wait, Stoick Haddock... You're Stoick's kid?" Although she hadn't met him, she knew he'd been called a taller, thicker-bearded likeness of her own burly father, and his apparent son looked to her like a young child with too-long limbs. From how he looked back at her, it seemed like he already knew she was thinking it.

"The one and only," he sighed. "And it's Hiccup."

"Well, don't get acting hoity-toity because your daddy's in charge around here. She pointed North-East, where the hunting grounds were, then to where they stood, explaining, "The hunting area's for hunting, this part's for whatever else."

"Actually, the point of a non-hunting area is sort of that nobody uses weapons in it."

The distasteful way he spoke of weapons only got him more onto her nerves. "It's just a sporting bow. And it's not like I let arrows fly willy-nilly. I know how to shoot without hitting anyone."

Hiccup gestured to all of himself, "So...?"

Merida stuck the arrow's end inches from his face and warned, "See this? Fletching tore. I never miss, I never hit anyone. You're fine. Not a big deal."

Scowling at him, she dropped the arrow back into her quiver. He almost immediately turned from flustered to expressionless and spoke dryly back to her.

"Well, sorry if my near-death experience has inconvenienced you. I'll be on my way, carry on with your misdemeanor."  
She scoffed as she watched him walk off in the direction of town.

Just that fast, a stupid broken arrow and a stupid skinny boy with a stupid name had undone everything the archery had solved, and just when it was too dark to shoot anymore.

"At least I had some reason to be out here," she called back at him, "Were you trying to catch a cold, or maybe practicing a dramatic monologue?"  
Hiccup halted and took a look over his shoulder at her. His glare sparked her bright smile.

"Oh, sorry I've interrupted you. You carry on too, then. Everyone needs a lonely stroll in the rain every once in a while, don't they?"

By the time she'd finished, Hiccup had disappeared behind some thick brush without seeming to listen. Annoying him wasn't quite satisfying enough to make up for the annoyance he'd caused, but all there was left to do now was return home. Merida counted her arrows and started home, hoping her mother wouldn't fret over any mud on her clothes, but knowing she would.


	2. Chapter 2

Here, have some more junk writing. Yeah, I know it's short. I just started college this week... So there's that...

* * *

Hiccup hadn't arrived in the woods alone. It didn't take long to spot his companion playfully terrorizing a few birds up a tree and coax him to glide back down to the forest floor. Toothless roaming freely never worried him; his dragon was still the most intelligent and loyal of any he'd observed. Most of the time he strayed off, it was just to chase small animals anyway, and he always returned as soon as he was called. The girl he'd just encountered, whom he'd decided to mentally file as "abrasive at best", was very wrong in assuming he was alone. Besides, he didn't see anyone with her.

On the other hand, she had a point in saying he didn't have any real reason to be wandering out in the rain. At least, none other than to find some peace quiet in a _usually_ peaceful and quiet place. In previous years, when he couldn't have listed two friends at a time, the forest somehow just became a safe haven. Maybe it was its desertedness or the way it made one forget themselves, but it held a unique beauty. A year after befriending Toothless, changing the public stance on dragons, gaining friends, and losing a foot, that still hadn't changed.

Today, however, the forest air held flying arrows and the floor became a layer of mud. Crossing the clearing again, he hoped home would be more relaxing.

"I have a cousin?"

"Born just a couple years before you. I didn't expect you'd remember her." Gobber had conveniently left their house after dinner, but before Stoick began cleanup and dropped the news on Hiccup.

"Wait, why didn't I know about this?"

"Well, she went missing. Presumed kidnapped. Turns out now, they were right."

Hiccup gaped, "Are you trying to tell me police found her body chopped up in some lunatic's RV or something?"

"I said I had good news, didn't I? She's alive, healthy, safe. And home. Thomas said she wants to meet the rest of the family." This information was quite jarring. His aunt and uncle never had children, as far as he had known, but a distance had grown between their small families and he hadn't been in good contact with them for years. Still, to suddenly hear differently was too much to take in like this, and every question answered made Hiccup want to ask two more.

"But why didn't you ever tell me any of this? That they had a daughter, or the kidnapping thing? I feel like that should have come up in conversation at some point-when did all of this happen?"

Stoick started, "Hiccup,"

Yet the boy continued, "And Tom and Prim just... Lost a kid? And that's it? Did we stop seeing them because of _that_?"

"Now, hold on-"

"You're not going to actually answer any of this, are you?"

"Hiccup!" Stoick's unintentionally booming voice finally silenced him. "Just stop. For a second. I know you're confused. And no, there wasn't exactly a golden opportunity to bring up a family member we've all assumed was dead for the last decade. It's not easy to talk about people you'll never see again."

For once in the conversation, Hiccup stopped trying to interject. After an understood silence, he finally mumbled back, "I know."

Stoick sighed and said "I'm sorry, Hiccup. I can tell you more in the morning, if you'd like."

Toothless wandered into the nook to nudge his face into Hiccup's hand. He murmured, "Sure," petting black scales and getting up from his seat.

Following Toothless back out of the room, he retrieved the backpack he'd left by the front door. Once seeing that Stoick had turned back into the kitchen, he searched through the lowest bookshelf and silently collected an old photo album before heading back to his own room.

He was sure the album hadn't been opened in years for a number of reasons, some of which being:

1\. Neither he nor Stoick were especially interested in reviewing younger versions of themselves.  
2\. It had been crammed besides dozens of other equally as uninteresting books: tattered dictionaries, outdated manuals...  
3\. The album had chiefly been started, maintained, and regarded as belonging to his mother.

The way the spine cracked when he opened it on his desk all but confirmed his guess that nobody else had done so since she last closed it. Although at sixteen he still didn't care much for how he looked, he was immediately very certain he _did not_ like his baby pictures. However, if he weren't self-conscious about it, the way his wide eyes looked absolutely terrified nearly all of the time was a bit amusing.

A few pages in, he found what he was looking for. A photo showed a small blonde girl, looking to be about two years old, smiling at his infant self. Despite him being alarmingly frail and on a breathing tube, she was beaming with excitement. Toothless cooed, leaning in to sniff the pages.

"So, Rapunzel, was it? Hiding in plain sight, all this time."


	3. Chapter 3

Woah I didn't even realize I didn't write for two weeks. Well, that happened. These also keep getting shorter, so I don't know what's wrong with me.

* * *

Angry, laying on her bed, Mer wished badly that it was the gangly idiot at the other end of the rubber band gun. And also that it was a real gun, or perhaps a flamethrower. Her brothers' toy wasn't much of a stress-reliever.

"You shouldn't shoot in the house." Elinor appeared in her doorway. Mer shot a stinging look at her mother and dropped her arm down.

"Where else am I going to shoot? Can't do it outside the house, I'd be burned at the stake."

Elinor crossed her arms and scoffed, "You should be thankful to not be in trouble."

"Oh, I'm _not_ in trouble?" That wasn't true, they both knew it. "I'll say thanks when I have my bow back."

"You can't learn what's right without consequence."

All of their arguing was growing bothersome, but still she challenged, "Tell me what I did wrong, then!"

"You _cannot_ be reckless here. Did it ever once cross your mind that one slip of the hand could have killed someone?" That warning should have sounded worse, but had a concerning bit of intrigue folded into it now.

"I didn't even know anyone was there! When have I ever tried hurting someone?"

"Settle. Down. I never accused you-"

"He did." Merida's voice was low, but firm. She turned away, thinking Elinor would reprimand her for the interruption, but she responded calmly.

"Do you know why he would tell his father you shot at him?"

"Because he's a horrid, whiny, scunner, like every kid from here." Merida grumbled.

With shut eyes, Elinor shook her head and groaned, "I pray your brothers don't hear half of you say, they'll learn to copy. We all have enough to get used to here. Just give this a chance, would you?"

There was too much to say, too many more reasons to not 'give this a chance' than Merida could even start on.  
"It's not fair."

She'd said it countless times before, during, and after their move. By now, her mother had heard it enough. She left the room with an impatient response, "Merida, it's not the end of the world."

Merida, in reply, threw the door shut behind her and could picture the wince Elinor made at the slam. Then, falling back onto the bed, buried her face into the pillow, then her fingers in like claws. It felt like her blood had gone past boiled and had burnt. There wasn't even any use being angry anymore, and she knew it, but there was no stopping it. So she just stayed like that, for a long time, deciding to wait for morning. Looking out the window only to see that the green hills had been replaced with the mildewy siding of the next house over ruined the entire day every time she awoke. _Can't wait._

Sometimes, when there was enough silence, it didn't seem so bad. She really was grateful that the guys were here too. That way she at least had three familiar people at school to talk to, and without American accents. Even a few others from the town were decent. So, maybe it wasn't entirely fair to say everyone here was awful. But if her parents didn't have to be fair, neither did she. And she wasn't planning on giving chances to people that didn't give her any, either.

At least now, she had a new target to hit.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm feeling pretty good about this now. Thank you for the favorites and reviews, although I only just started replying to them because I'm a buttnugget. I'm trying to write longer chapters and write more often now. We'll see how that turns out. For now, have a long-ass chapter that I probably didn't fully proofread.

* * *

Lunch break was the fourth time, _at least_, that Monday that he'd accidentally met eyes with clearly irritated Merida in passing time. How could it be possible to have that bad luck? Considering past events, pretending to not have seen her while proceeding to the usual spot outside the hall doors seemed like the best choice. Astrid, the twins, and Snotlout were already there, along with Fishlegs, who was still engrossed in his reading. He missed walking to school with them, and none of them shared morning classes with him, making it the first time he'd seen them since Friday. Quite a bit had gone on since then.

"Someone finally made it to school," Astrid teased.

"I've been here since first period." To be more accurate, "... Halfway through first period."

"And knowing you-"

"I was working on something this weekend."

"Oh boy," Fishlegs whispered over the small draconology handbook.

They always expected him to be up to something crazy. Justified, with what happened the last year. "Just research. You wouldn't believe what my dad dropped on me Friday night."

"Frying pan?" Everyone stopped to look at Tuff with confused expressions. "Just a guess. And it happens." Ruff nodded to him vacantly.

Hiccup slowly hook his head. "Not literally, I mean he had crazy news."

Snotlout chimed in, a bit too cheerily asking, "Are you adopted?"

Hiccup reluctantly answered the second interruption, "No, but it does have to do with family."

"Something about your mom?" Fishlegs offered.

"Can we all stop with the guessing game? They're only getting worse."

Astrid urged, "Just tell us, then."

"Alright. So... My aunt and uncle apparently had a daughter."

The table went silent again until Snotlout charmingly broke it. "So some old people had a baby, who gives a rat's ass?"

"Eighteen years ago. I had a cousin my entire life and didn't even know. Well, I guess I knew her, before she was kidnapped." The silence devolved into unamused stares. It took a moment to realize what he just said, paired with its delivery, sounded like a pitch for a bad ABC Family show. "No, I'm not joking, I found pictures of her. Some of the old reports after she went missing... The timing works, everything checks out, she's for real."

Half of them were snickering, but Astrid played along, "And she's been gone how long?"

Hiccup shrugged, "About fourteen years... Just enough that I wouldn't remember, of course." Oh, this was sounding so fake. He hardly believed Stoick when they discussed it, how could any of it make sense to them?

"What whackjob hides a stolen kid for fourteen years?" Snotlout asked. "Did he keep her locked in the basement with a salt lick and a bucket? Or were the cops just lazy?"

"Being used by a witch for her health-restoring power, no, she didn't get out much." The more he thought of her, the worse he felt. This was all so messed up. "She was manipulated for her entire childhood."

Snotlout added, "Lots of people go missing around here. All those people in the lake, that guy Lars, Hiccup's mom..."

Astrid lightly smacked Snotlout's arm. He still didn't think to not bring it up, though Hiccup was used to it at this point. She looked away and shook her head. "There's something seriously wrong with this town." Nobody could argue with it. As innocent or even quaint as Aberleigh appeared to anyone outside of its limits, nobody living within them ever seemed to get a rest.

Fishlegs fidgeted in concern. "So... Why do we live in it?"

Watching the twins singe their arm hair with a lighter (yeah, that was definitely _not _allowed on campus) and laugh at the smoke, Hiccup answered "Because we're crazy."

Turning back to Hiccup, Astrid said, "It's weird that your dad wouldn't tell you something like that, though."

"If you haven't noticed yet, my entire life is weird." He glanced up to see Merida still staring violently. He hushed to the group, "On that note, does anybody know what the deal with Merida is?"

Fishlegs asked, "Who?"

"Moved from Scotland, big red hair... Kind of behind you." Immediately Hiccup cringed and muttered "No, don't all look!" as Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs did so. Looking away, he could still feel her eyes burning holes in himself.

They turned back, Snotlout shrugging. "Eh... like a Five, but still way out of your league."

"Definitely not what I was asking about. She's just been glaring at me all day. What is that?"

"She's pissed. Not at you, just in general," Astrid clarified, "but wouldn't you be if you had to move here?" She didn't know the half of it, he knew it was more personal than that.

"She almost shot me the other day, in the section of the forest she shouldn't even have a bow, and told me I was overreacting about the arrow that hit a tree - I swear - less than a yard in front of my face." Knowing he wasn't finished, Astrid smiled and waited.

"It's pretty clear she really doesn't like me, and I think..." He looked again, only to see she'd walked away. "I think she's planning to kill me."

Astrid only laughed quiety. "You can calm down. Unless you deliberately did something to get on her nerves, you're probably in the clear."

"I think telling her who my dad is was enough to get her mad."

"So maybe she's a little hot-headed. She isn't stupid enough to pick fights in the first month of school for no reason."

Astrid was never particularly rude to him before they became friends, but it was impossible for her to stand up like this for a stranger. "Do you know her?"

"I've talked to her once or twice." She gestured to herself and Snotlout, "We all have P.E. together."

Snotlout gained an enlightened look. "She's the one with the high socks! Nevermind, Seven. At least with the hair up."

Astrid rolled her eyes away from him grumbling, "We really don't need your commentary, you know." Only at that moment did Hiccup finally notice Astrid's Chemistry book. He then realized they shared that class and, yes, he should have had his with him too.

"Hang on," he said as he stood back up, "I think I forgot my book in my locker again."

Wryly smiling, Astrid mocked, "The genius that captured and tamed the most rare and mysterious of dragons... Forgetting the same book for three weeks straight."

"At least I'm _remembering_ I forgot it," he joked back, and reentered the hallway.

He was glad that this year he could open a top locker with no problem. Previous years hadn't been as easy. In the seventh grade it was either carrying all of his books all day, or stepping on top of them to be able to read the numbers on the lock. After everything Snotlout said about the latter, he mostly stuck to the former. He thought he was alone in the hall until hearing a voice from the other side of the locker door, causing him to jump a bit.

"So a strayed arrow is a murder attempt to you, is it?" Closing the door revealed Merida with a look of murder in her eyes.

He took a half step away and carefully inquired, "Uh... What do you mean?"

"I told you it was an accident," her words biting as she stepped closer, "you know it was."

All he knew was that this was escalating quickly and couldn't end well. "I... don't know what you're referring-"

"Why did my father hear from yours that I attacked you?" The rise of her voice, along with a quick shove to his left shoulder, backed him up against the wall. She wasn't any larger than him, but undoubtedly more threatening.

"I never told him that." Hiccup tried his best to keep his voice from shaking. His voice shouldn't shake at this.

"Really."

"All I said to him was that you shot near me, not on purpose." Why? _Why_ did he tell him that in the first place?

Incredulous, she demanded, "Tell me who made up the rest, then."

"Look, it's no secret our dads don't get along. Don't you think it's possible they stretched the story a bit? Mine getting protective, yours getting offended, easy mistake."

Her face was softening. Thank goodness, the snarl was disappearing. He added, "I don't want any trouble. I'm assuming, uh, hoping you don't either. What do you say we drop this, just stay out of each others' ways?"

She stared for a second, still half menacingly, before giving him that lovely word, "Fine." Then, grabbed a stack of books from the floor and was off.

Good God, it was like watching a hurricane turn into a rainbow.

Suddenly, she spun back around. "But I'll make this clear to you: I don't need any chicken-legged louts OR their fathers spreading lies about me."

"Well, sorry. Won't happen again." Despite the risky sarcasm in his tone, he found himself pathetically apologizing again to someone that had scared him half to death twice.

At least she was gone now. And actually, quite unnatural in how quickly she was gone. The entire encounter felt closer to a surprise Pokemon trainer battle than how two normal humans would communicate at school. That would be granting, of course, that either of them were anything close to normal. Hating to admit it, even to himself, Hiccup was just slightly terrified of her. It seemed she liked it that way.

Chicken-legged lout. Somehow, he had never heard that one before.


	5. Chapter 5

*Drops off a really short and bad chapter over a month after last update like nothing happened* _I'm sorryyyyyyy I'm in colleeeeeeege_

* * *

She took her hair out of the scrunchie, shook it back to its usual shape, and sighed, "Tuesdays suck."

Astrid knelt beside her and opened her own locker. "At least we're past Monday."

Everyone seemed to always say Mondays were the worst, but Merida couldn't agree less. "On Mondays I've gotten two days to forget this place. By Tuesday I remember how much I hate it, but have to come back again."

"Well, only six hours left today, then we're almost halfway through our third week of a nine month school year." She started untying her tennis shoes and added, "Oh, and heads up: I think Snotlout likes your socks. Maybe ditch them. He gets creepy."

Well, the idiot had been trying to talk to her. She snatched her jeans from the locker."Whatever. If he tries talking to me, he'll regret it."

Astrid smiled, said "Glad you're learning", and pulled her shirt off. Merida had seen her do it close to ten times now, but it still felt a bit weird to be surrounded by a dozen girls carelessly stripping to their underwear (some of them changing _bras_) when she had never needed to change around others her age before. It's why she wore only baggy shirts now, and kept them on for every other class. Not out of embarrassment, just unfamiliarity. Like every other day, she swapped her shorts for the jeans as quickly as possible, then saw Astrid was wearing a blue dress.

Lacing her shoes up again, Merida asked "Why do you dress girly like that?"

Astrid looked at her own outfit, asking "Why not?"

"Well, you aren't that girly."

"I'm not?"

"In a good way. I don't like it when girls are whiny and prissy. It's why I don't get along with them."

"You do know most girls aren't actually like that, right?"

Her tone was beginning to sound a bit less friendly, so Merida stood and replied a bit more quietly, "Well, I-guess I didn't know a lot of girls. I'm usually just around my brothers. And now Kevin and Callum."

"I thought you were friends with Steven too." Ugh, Macintosh... The two started for the hallway.

"No, he just annoys me. So cocky. The others have good enough sense to not try flirting."

Astrid sighed, "That's the annoying part of being friends with guys. You know Hiccup, imagine /him/ flirting with you." Merida shuddered for a second, trying /not/ to imagine that.

Astrid must have seen her cringing face. "Not anymore. He knows we're only friends now."

"Were you not always _just_ friends?"

"We just kissed a couple times last year, that's all."

"Ugh, why?" She blurted in recoil. "I mean, he's just so..."

Astrid nodded understandingly."I know, he's a little weird. But he's nice once you get to know him." Right. Even if she decided he wasn't so bad after all, she couldn't see why Astrid would kiss him, much less admit it. With a small wave, Astrid disappeared down on of the crowded halls.

Class after boring class, her thoughts kept turning in circles. It was such a small thing, but strange. Everyone seemed to know and like him, and she couldn't even tell why. Stupid... Arrow... Forest... Skinny idiot... Arrow-

An ending bell rung her out of a trance. When looking at her notebook to see what class she'd ignored so intensely, she found it covered in scribblings so deep in the pages they wrinkled and tore. Every day, she was just getting angrier. Hopefully she'd find a way to not kill everyone around her before at least the semester ended.


	6. Chapter 6

*emerges unexpectedly from the dark in a puff of 6-month old dust* _Surprise. Bet you thought you saw the last of me._

That was the dumbest thing I've written this year, but who knows, this chapter might top it.

And no, I have no explanation for not writing. I'm just a lazy idiot.

* * *

"You guys know Merida."

Those weren't the words that he was hoping to find in their usual area, and the personification of fire wasn't the sight he hoped for either. It's not like it was a territorial thing, Hiccup just preferred to _not_ spend break time with someone that despised him. Behind him, Snotlout approached and jumped right into action.

"Cool, did you hire her as a hitman or something?" He poked an elbow into Hiccup's side, like he would laugh for a joke about his own murder.

Astrid leaned over and mentioned to Merida, "Sorry, he really doesn't get much better than that."

He wished he could just up and ask why she had brought her here at all, but Astrid was no less decided and stubborn than he was, and it didn't look like Merida came her on her own will either.

"Well, nice job nailing that chick in the face this morning" Snotlout said.

"It was an accident!" Her voice commanded attention, but her mouth shut, and eyes stayed pointed down. Everyone else stopped in motion at her outburst, despite how fleeting their attention usually was.

"Just saying thanks," Snotlout eased back in, and faced the rest of the group to go on, "We were supposed to play volleyball, but she slammed it into the back of some chicks head, who fell flat on her face, and got such a bad nosebleed the teacher left and we got open gym the rest of class!" He glanced around to everyone with an excited face, meeting mostly blank ones.

Ruffnut finally nodded with impressed eyes and put her hand up in front of Merida, delivering a fully genuine, "_Nice_."

Merida seemed caught off guard, and gave something between a slap and the attention seeking nudge of a cat with her hand. Hiccup felt some relief, unenthusiastic as it was. He knew if he were asking for a high five from her, he would probably only be able to do high threes for the rest of his life.

"I still don't understand why you all took PE as first period." Fishlegs groaned. "As if it's not bad enough, first thing in the morning?"

Astrid explained, "We registered late. Everyone that period did. And I am _not_ wasting senior year in there."

"You don't have to at all, lucky." Snotlout complained to Hiccup.

"Yeah, thank God for my disability. I keep needing the dumb thing adjusted whenever I get taller."

"You're not getting taller... Are you?"

"I've grown two inches since I first got the leg."

The others produced various noises of skepticism. Whatever. He had at least caught up to Astrid in height.

"Do you have a false leg?"Merida spoke up. He took a tense glance at her. That was probably the first time she expressed something with non-aggressive interest to him. Before he could say anything, Ruffnut cut in.

"Last year he killed a dragon and it, like, exploded, so his leg fell off."

"It didn't _fall off. _And I-"

Fishlegs sat up straight to offer a correction before he could. "He and Toothless killed it, then his leg was messed up from the fall and the fire, so they had to amputate it."

"Sure, that's... _More_ like what happened." Nevermind the fact none of them even saw exactly what happened in the fire that day, Toothless being probably the best witness. Giving up on guiding the conversation, the words mostly just sat in the air around him.

With just a little enthusiasm, Merida shrugged and mentioned, "A bear ripped my dad's leg off."  
All turned to her, the twins especially intrigued. "We were camping and it came for my mum and I, but then he fought it back."

"Scotland's a hell of a location." Hiccup mumbled to himself.

"Hell of a party!" Tuff called it instead, "I want to fight a bear for my leg!" Merida looked pretty pleased with herself having an interesting story. He found it a bit strange that a story including dragons fighting one another had become old news to everybody else. It didn't take much effort from her at all to grab their attention, which sent him wondering for a second if she had made this story up just to keep the conversation away from him. A second later, though, the suspicion seemed, even in his own mind, to be ridiculous and full of needless jealously. As she spoke on about some giant bear, the pinches faded from her face, the bite of her words softened up, and came easy as though they were already good friends of hers. Was she actually... Not angry?

* * *

Before today, he wouldn't have tried talking to her in class. Mostly, he just tried to see the front of the room past her hair. Now it was a matter of finding what to say to her, just to see if he could at least reduce her anger a bit more.

"Hey, Merida?"

She turned around, saying nothing, but looking like he was doing something stupid. He realized at this point that he probably was, but it was too late to back out now.

"So... You said your dad hunted bears after that... Thing that happened." He left space for a response, but all she did was blink. "Did he bowhunt too, or... I mean, it seems like it would be difficult to hunt bears with just arrows, but..."

"I thought we were leaving each other alone." Her words came back full of the same rough edges as days ago. The friendly tone everyone else had earned clearly hadn't opened up for him, and it seemed likely that wasn't going to change.

"We were all just hanging out together. I thought that meant-"

"We're not friends just because I heard you're missing a limb." She turned her face and attention to the ipod she pulled out.

"It's below the knee. So, more like a half limb..." Before he finished two words, tinny noise hummed out from her headphones, and he knew she wouldn't have heard a thing from him. It was at least satisfying to finish saying what he had intended to, for once. Astrid was definitely wrong about how personal her treatment was. In the end, though, it didn't really matter. So, somebody unnecessarily ignored his entire existence, nothing new. She wasn't worth talking to anyway. He had enough careless, irrational, and short tempered friends, he didn't need to make another that also owned and used projectile weapons.

Accepting her silence, he opened his binder and instantly realized something was missing. It was lighter, emptier... _The notebook.  
_All of the dragon's drawings and notes. The notebook was gone.

* * *

update: hyahahaha I didn't even finish this before posting it so I had to edit it ahhahaha I hate myself


	7. Chapter 7

Lo and behold, more than two characters exist. Unfortunately, so does laziness. And the fact I'm really not a writer. _you know what i'm not even going to bother with self deprecation, I have portfolios to arrange and sleep to get screw tHIS CRAP_

* * *

Two strangers stood in her new living room, among the two others she hardly knew any better. They were all family, but only since July, really. There was still so much to get used to, but her parents' kindness had helped the transition to go along surprisingly smoothly. Approaching everyone, Rapunzel hoped the kindness ran in their family.

"Nice to finally meet you," she chimed to the boy, and offered her hand to shake. "Hiccup, right?" He seemed surprised by this and awkwardly reciprocated. "Uh... Yeah, hi."

Weird. That was too weird to be right. _Do people shake hands with relatives? _it didn't really matter, though, she realized. He had no more cousin experience than she did. Turning to Stoick, she started, "And... Long time no see, right?" She tried to laugh, and he faintly smiled when he replied, "You were practically a baby last time I saw you."

"I wish I could remember." Then, feeling the emptiness in the air again, "Should I call you uncle, or Stoick, or...?"

"Stoick is fine."

She turned to the younger stranger again. Sometimes she still forgot, but her hair was brown too. There had to be some other similarity, _something_. "Oh, Hiccup! I just remembered, uh - come on, I'll show you." Still, he said nothing, but she sidewalked toward the hallway until he began to follow. The room she'd moved into apparently used to be hers, though she couldn't really find any memories of it. It was all so different now, leading a new person to a new room in a new house, opening her new door... "I heard you have a way with dragons," she picked her pet off of the bedpost they were climbing. "Pascal is no great, winged beast, but he is a reptile, so..."

"Huh. I've never held a chameleon before." Pascal perched on Hiccup's arm, clutching at his jacket with multicolored legs.

"He's very friendly. As long as you're friendly to him, anyway." Leaving the two to staring one another, she snatched at a shoebox under the bed frame, finding the tiny outfits she's sewn for the lizard over the years. Poor pascal had truly suffered, she realized, picking up a particularly frilly one to show Hiccup.

"This," she felt a laugh bubbling up "THIS is how bored I used to get!" For the first time, it looked like he was actually smiling. Just barely, but it seemed genuine before it faded away.

Hiccup stared at Pascal, leaving her unsure if it was out of interest or to avert eye contact with her. "I guess you were alone a lot, huh?"

"Oh, at least I had a good friend to keep me company!" Her bright smile was, again, only met by a hesitant one. He really needed prodding to speak. "Okay, you've met the weirdo. And the lizard." she joked," I don't know anything about you yet."

His voice stayed slow with uncertainty. "Well, you know the dragon thing. And..." His eyes dragged across the room, finding nowhere comfortable to rest. "And that I don't know what kind of conversation to make right now."

"Just tell me about your friends."

"Friends. As in the, um..." He watched Pascal again, who was now climbing away over her bed.

"The human ones"

He nodded once. "Right. Well, there's Astrid and Fishlegs, I go to school with them-"

"Fishlegs?" Barely two sentences in, she found herself interrupting.

"It's a nickname Snotlout made up for him." That certainly wasn't a helpful sentence. After a pause, he explained, "And Snotlout is a nickname that was meant to get back at him, but he reclaimed it instead. As you can probably tell, we're all very sophisticated."

"I shouldn't think those names are weird anyway. I'm named after lettuce."

A gap of silence came before his reply came with a blank stare. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah. There's certain type that's called Rapunzel in Germany. My dad said he made soup from it when my mom got sick. I guess it's sweet, but still kind of-." Realizing her interruption again, he shook her head, "Sorry, forget about it. What about your name? Is that a nickname?"

His eyes drifted away as he sighed, "No, no, unfortunately, that's actually on my birth certificate."

"So, how did you get it?"

His hesitation made her start hoping she hadn't embarrassed him, but he then answered, "It's just what my dad's family names you when they have a kid that's born early. I'm actually the third in the family to be named after that bodily function."

She tried to laugh, although it seemed out of place. That sense kept coming over her more and more often. Here they were, meeting one another for the first time in almost fifteen years, the first time since they were practically _babies, _and it begged the question of how easy it could have to speak to one another if the time hadn't been torn apart. Now they barely knew who they were to each other, while she was still trying to figure out who she was herself.

"Do these glow?" Hiccup looked around and pointed at the room's ceiling, which was covered in dozens of stars. "In the dark, I mean. The stars?"

"Yeah, um, I always had them in my... room." Although 'my room' wasn't quite appropriate, she didn't want to call the place she used to live a prison, either. There _was_ still hope for a lighthearted conversation. "They used to be charted into constellations and everything, but I haven't fixed that up again yet."

As soon as she mentioned the constellations, he faced her again. Hushed, but clear, he spoke "I did that same thing." The lost look on his face was gone, now excited, and his arms started moving around in strange gestures. "They weren't perfectly laid out, sure, but I put together my favorite constellations on my walls when I was little." He waved, sort of offhand, and quipped, "Littler."

She actually did laugh now, That was an odd thing. Not the joke, but how quickly he animated at these stars nobody else had asked about. She was allowed to collect them from the... room, and Eugene offered to help her arrange them when she had the time, but nobody was so interested.  
"So, you like stars too." She smiled, and got an eager nod back from him. Only then did she notice the green eyes they shared as well.  
"Why were they on your wall, though?"

"Oh, I wanted to put them up myself. And being five doesn't make it easy to reach the ceiling." Rapunzel had fixed this problem by climbing with chairs, shelves, and her own hair, but she figured Hiccup was probably more supervised and better groomed than the wild child she was.

"You know, Toothless always loves new people." Hiccup shrugged, looking back at her again. "You'll have to meet him sometime."

This could all be a start. Her tiny family was growing a bit, and she was glad for who was in it.


	8. Chapter 8

what's up I have a hundred things to work on but this is the least important towards my education, which is why I worked on it.

I honestly don't even know if Jack is in character because i watched that movie like one time about two years ago and completely changed his character and all of the guardians because hell no I'm not writing "spirits" or whatever they're just mortal people with weird powers now and I tried to be funny but mostly I am tired and this got way longer than planned

i am a loser

gun

* * *

They didn't go to school together anymore, but Jack was the one friend he had outside of the "dragon training" group, and the only one at all before they came around to him. Jack never acted like he even noticed that Hiccup wasn't well received by everyone else. As far as he was concerned, they were social equals. Just in case he actually couldn't tell, Hiccup didn't mention to Jack that he was the only that ever talked to him back then. By now, each of their lives had been adjusted beyond the worries of social convention. Life only kept getting stranger for both of them.

"Okay, so… What was she like?" Jack asked him, a bit confused to hear about Rapunzel.

Hiccup sat on Jack's bed, staring at his schoolbag in his lap. "Well, she was… Nice…" Though a lousy descriptor, it was the most suitable one he could think of. "She smiled a lot. And she has a pet chameleon, named Pascal. That was pretty cool."

Jack shook him by the shoulder a bit."Hey, let's focus on the human."

"Well, I was a bit distracted, if you can believe it. She was talking a lot to me, but I didn't really know what to say to her. 'Sorry I don't remember you from when I was two'?"

"She probably felt weird too. Neither of you really have much experience with relatives." Jack's 'family' situation had certainly evolved since they had first met, but was never just him with one parent in an otherwise empty house. It was true, even a single half-cousin brought more familial closeness than he was used to.

"Yeah, and we're kind of missing a link, too." Jack waited for an explanation. "I think part of the reason we didn't talk much to my aunt and uncle for so long was that my dad felt odd about… well, Prim being my mom's sister. Now we all have to acknowledge that again."

"Does Rapple-or, Rehhh… you know, _your cousin_, does she know what happened?"

"I assume they told _Rapunzel_, yes. She already knew about the dragon-hunting debacle and my leg, so she probably got quite the history lesson."

"Quite the everything lesson, I'd guess." Jack remarked, "I'm surprised she was talkative with you, that kind of isolation can screw people up." He stood up. "Do you realize she went 14 years without any dudes around? If I went until now without meeting a girl, I'd see one and be like, 'What's that? What are those things they have? Why do I want to touch them?'"

Hiccup stopped him with a raised hand. "Please, just don't. Anyways, she's seen other people before, she just couldn't go out and talk to them."

"Tooth says I'm the first guyfriend she's had, even though she wasn't locked up, and I think she's still getting used to me."

Hiccup laughed a bit at that. "Who doesn't have to get used to you? You're a walking snow cone machine. Wait, I can't remember. Don't you have- have a-" He lowered his voice and gestured vaguely, "Some sort of a... thing? With Tooth?"

"What? No, she's cute and all, but she's kind of like a sister to me." Although he shook his head and added, "I mean, not like a _real_ sister. Like a step-sister, so it's not weird."

Hiccup drew his eyebrows together and glanced back in unease. "I'm pretty sure thinking sisters of any kind are cute is a little weird. Unless you mean cute as in, 'oh, cute little puppies', which I'm sure you don't."

"It's fine if you meet when you're basically adults and aren't blood related" Jack argued."We live together and we're close friends, that's all that makes it sisterly."

Hiccup replied but continued staring at the walls.

"You have to pick a side; friend, girlfriend, or sister. Very different things."

"Of course, you're the expert. You've never had sisters or girlfriends. I mean, unless..." he tilted his head to Hiccup.

"Astrid was never my girlfriend" he answered immediately.

"Right, so, you've only had friends. And most of yours are wild animals."

"Like the one I'm talking to."

Jack smiled back, not at all offended. "Exactly."

"Blonde, pompous, and vaguely incestuous. If you paid back money you owed people, you could be a Lannister."

"First of all," he moved his hand in a circle to display his head "I'm platinum." Hiccup turned his head, exasperated, with his eyes shut to shield him from Jack's theatricality.

"And I would say that guy was a little more than 'vaguely' incestuous. By the way, never letting you convince me to watch a show ever again."

"You wanted to watch it"

Jack's calm face turned bitter, and he spoke as if betrayed. "You said there would be boobs."

"Well, there were! Lots of boobs!" Hiccup had thought that would be the best way to get Jack to try watching it. It was no less true, though.

Instead of arguing back, Jack was paying attention to something else. Hiccup followed his eyes across his own shoulder to find that Bunnymund had opened the door behind his back. His long ears angled back and matched the slight scowl on his face.

"I was talking about a show-" Hiccup started to explain, struck with sudden embarrassment, but Bunny's eyes flicked to Jack uninterested.

"Do you know where Sandy is?"

Jack replied, "Uh... I think I saw him this morning. I haven't really kept track."

Bunny sighed as he left the doorway, "Brilliant."

Hiccup felt heat rush into his face and turned back around to Jack. "Great, so… that made me sound like a total creep. "

Jack snickered at his nervousness."So what?"

"He's kind of like a parent, right? It sounded like I was reviewing a porno just now, is that not awkward?"

"He's more like a morally questionable Australian rabbit uncle that nobody knows enough about, but he does the dishes so you just keep him around and don't ask questions." Being said in one casual breath almost made it sound like a rational sentence.

"Yeah... See, I don't know the social protocol that comes with that."

Gazing into an imaginary distance, Jack looked to be thinking. "But really, you have to admit it is... kind of porn. Just with an unusually developed plot"

"What porn involves decapitation?"

"Is that a rhetorical question, or would you like a notarized list?"

"Rhetorical."

"Kidding."

Hiccup looked back down to the backpack, remembering his missing notebook. It had been days since he realized it was gone.

"I didn't leave a notebook here by any chance, did I? Um... the little brown one?"

Jack spread his arms wide, as if surrendering to the state of disarray they sat in the middle of. Flatly he asked, "Does it really look like I would know?"

Hiccup sank back against the wall. "Yeah, nevermind." Though the observations he'd written in it weren't of the utmost scientific priority, it was stressful to lose it all so quickly. The very first notes made of Toothless were there, and the prototypes of the replacement tail. "I just don't understand what could've happened to it, it's not at home, it's not in my schoolbag, I didn't take it out for anything…"

"Maybe you were mugged by someone that loves stationary and you can't remember it." Jack shrugged.

Sitting up, Hiccup realized, "You're probably right."

"Wait, what?"

"Merida took it from me. Why didn't I figure that out sooner? Of course she did!" He nearly forgot he'd been talking to Jack.

"Hold on. Who is this? Who allegedly stole your dragon diary?"

"Just... some girl that hates me."

"Could you be a little more specific?"

How to summarize the chaos that had infiltrated his life? "Long story short, her family just moved here, our dad's don't get along, and if he's anything like her, I can see why."

"Oh, she's like your enemy in a family rivalry thing. That's kinda cute."

"If by 'cute' you mean a belligerent, cutthroat, flaming ball of hatred, she's adorable."

"They aren't mutually exclusive. How did you meet your nemesis?"

"Another long story short, she almost shot me."

"She was going to shoot you? Does she have a... gun?"

"A bow, actually," Hiccup answered, though the arrows seemed more frightening to him than bullets. "But that was just an accident. I tried to tell her it wasn't safe, came off to her as 'whiny', our dads got involved, and..." He sighed tiredly, "it's all downhill from there."

"You could've said sorry, I guess."

"I actually_ did_ apologize for getting in the way of her haphazard murder darts." Jack smirked like Hiccup was kidding. "I seriously did. Because she actually scares me that much."

Jack leaned back, questioning. "Is she just... tall or something?"

He shook his head. "She's shorter than me. Maybe it's her hair. Maybe it's like the effect of a lion mane, you know, makes her look bigger, more intimidating. It's pretty hard to ignore a bright orange lion's mane." There was something about that red curls now that made the world jolt a bit, in the worst way, like the sound of a fire alarm or a car's metal crunching together in a collision.

Jack spoke in a critical tone, "So, the girl harassing you is also a short ginger..."

Hiccup, annoyed now, spoke louder. "Yes, Jack. Could I reclaim my dignity if I dated my adoptive sister? Should I try that?"

"Up on the roof, again." Again, Bunny's voice shot in Hiccup's ears and brought the panic back.

"Uh, that was a -"

"Don't need to know" He only looked at Jack. "God only knows how he gets up there. You seriously didn't see him?"

Jack smiled at a slant. "See, I might've noticed that _if_ I had gone outside today."

"I... don't even have a sister-" Hiccup's voice trailed off as Bunny closed the door behind himself without a sign of listening. He dropped his head into his hands. "Why did I even come here?"

In a strained whisper Jack asked, "Am I allowed to say 'That's what she said'?"

It took Hiccup a few seconds to process the inappropriate comment, and reluctantly replied. "It works better as 'That's what _he_ said'."

Once Jack was done laughing, and back to his "_normal_" self (which took a few long minutes), Hiccup was rechecking if there was anything else missing from his schoolbag. Merida couldn't have known that notebook was particularly important, could she? Maybe she just grabbed something at random, just to send a message. Or, like Jack, she had thought it was a "diary" with some sort of embarrassing information. Neither really made much sense, as she didn't seem to be the scheming type. Knowing she could be flipping through his personal notes or sketches still was an uncomfortable experience, though. They really weren't created for the public eye, especially not _hers. _Jack watched, spinning left and right in the chair.

"You're really starting to seem paranoid now."

Hiccup stopped a moment to look back at him. "You would be too. I've never met someone so passive-aggressive in my life."

"Then just act a little more like her."

"Are you suggesting I start threatening her? You really think that would be effective, or even possible?"

Jack scoffed, "Woah, incite a resolution, not a riot." He stopped spinning and leaned closer to Hiccup. "Just tell her, 'Hey, I'd like to get my nerdy shit back now.' She'll probably get bored of you and give it up."

That only left Hiccup wondering if he would rather attempt confronting her or just let her keep the notes. Both were equally nauseating to imagine.


	9. Chapter 9

As I've said before, the "guardians" aren't immortal or mythical spirits, just humans with correlating abilities and some shared characteristics. The indecision in how to adapt this is a great part of why I hesitated for so long writing this chapter, along with general laziness and the inability to be bothered. However, I couldn't stand leaving behind the good parts of the story. Hah. Yeah, I've even tricked myself into liking some of this. So here's some more filler introductory garbage… 9 chapters in… And I can use all of the puns I want.

* * *

Nothing stirred the "Power House" like Tooth bringing a new friend home with her. The title was corny, sure, but Jack didn't know what else to call the home outfitted with a family quilted together with little more in common than how uncommon they were. Tooth seemed to make a point to meet and greet just about anyone in the surrounding area with special abilities. When Jack left his room that late morning, North was probably on what was his third cup of coffee while listening to Tooth gush over a new buddy that had probably gone to the bathroom for a few minutes of quiet. Jack sat at the breakfast table just to listen to what had been brought home this time.

"She said she used to catch birds that looked like me!" This probably would break some people into tears, but Tooth was so gleeful that her short wings pushed her into a cycle of gentle bobbing over the kitchen floor. "And my birds look like me! What if one of my birds actually went to her some days?" She spent a half second catching her breath. North drank and waited for the last tired addition from her. "I can imagine they would, they hate to see someone lonely."

"What's her name, again?"

"Rapunzel."

Like the sound of a bell, something signaled Jack to think of where he had heard the name, which didn't take long. He spun around in the seat. "Did you say Rapunzel?"

"Yes," Toothiana began to explain, "I guess it's a type of plant-"

"Yeah, some lettuce or something, Hiccup told me." Jack stood and faced Tooth. "That's his cousin!"

North raised his eyebrows. "Malenky?" This was how he underhandedly referred to Hiccup instead of just calling him "skinny" to his face. He shrugged and left the room. "Suppose that makes sense. Not much mass to that family."

"He never even told me she had abilities. Did he not think I would want to know that?" Somehow his friend, while grasping for any bit of information about Rapunzel other than how "nice" she was, failed to remember that she had extra human capabilities.

The presence of Tooth in the room reoccurred to Jack when she tilted her head and asked, "You're sure that's her?"

"Have you met any other Rapunzels?" Their conversation gradually picked up speed as they countered one another.

"Since when Hiccup does have a cousin?"

"I don't know, how long has she been out of the forest?"

"He's never mentioned her."

"He never knew about her."

"What, nobody ever told him she existed?" A pause caused the rhythm of speech to break. Jack only shook his head.

The blue tint of her long eyelashes fluttered into a blur when she blinked. She seriously asked now, "Nobody ever told him? Why wouldn't Stoick…"

"He probably just didn't want to scare him into thinking their entire family was hexed to disappear into the woods. Once is a freak accident, twice is a little suspicious."

"And Rapunzel's parents never said anything? Why weren't they ever around?"

"Because their mothers were sisters."

"Oh, no."

"Well, half-sisters, I think." He turned his eyes upward. "It's kind of a tangled family tree. Kind of a depressing one, too."

This quiet only lasted a few seconds before Tooth returned to rapid-pace speech. "But it's also great! Now that it's sorted out. You're friends, we're friends. It's a double family friend fourway!"

"I don't think you have a good handle on the word 'fourway'."

"Hello," Rapunzel quietly sang when she noticed Jack in the kitchen. "I'm-"

"Rapunzel," Jack finished for her with a smile. "Jack."

Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Tooth did. "Are you really Hiccup's cousin, or is Jack trying to trick me?"

"I am. You know each other?"

Jack answered, "We've been friends since before he found his fancy lizard."

"I never would have guessed it. But you're both so sweet, it's not such a shock." Tooth told her. Turning towards the wall, Jack rolled his eyes. "Polite when nervous" was a far better term to describe Hiccup than "sweet". Around him, he flip-flopped between uptight and emotionally impulsive. Maybe it was fun at times, but this wasn't generally a stable mixture, let alone a sweet one.

"Well, I've only known for a couple weeks myself. All of you must be why he didn't freak out when I said my hair used to glow when I sang. Or that it was like, 30 feet long."Rapunzel's sheepish smile matched the hand trying to push the little hair she had left behind her ear.

She apparently had somehow lost her powers. Maybe, Jack figured, that was why Hiccup hadn't told him anything. "Was that your ability? Long shiny hair?"

"It could heal injuries." The answer was sternly revealed from between Tooth's teeth. It was always funny to think of Tooth's teeth.

"Or trip me." Rapunzel added.

"So, what happened to that?" Tooth elbowed his side, indicating he was being rude.

Rapunzel didn't seem to notice the hit or the rudeness, however, and answered calmly. "It lost power when it was cut. It used to be blonde, too."

"Weird, I used to have brown hair. And brown eyes. And a human complexion."

A short burst of laughter was followed by a return of her meek posture. "Sorry, I forgot to ask what your abilities are?"

Jack looked up at the ceiling fan, raised a hand towards it, and caused a small flurry of flakes to spin around with the blades. While Rapunzel gazed with shock at the ceiling, Tooth sighed at the trick she'd seen a hundred times.

"Oh, I've heard about ice abilities! That's a little more common, right?"

"For powered people. In the normal population, not so much."

Tooth elbowed him again, but playfully now, "Heeey. We are normal."

"I get it. Don't rustle your feathers over it."

This prompted Tooth to shake the literal feathers on her face and shoulders as much as possible, making Rapunzel laugh again. "I still love when you do that."

"It never gets old." He shared a smile with Tooth for just a glance before turning right back to Rapunzel. "You know, I probably have a hundred stories about Hiccup he wouldn't tell you himself, if you're interested."

Maybe he was just imagining it, but she seemed to loosen up the longer they spoke. Underneath the layer of nervous laughter, however, she genuinely was quite kind and polite, if not a bit playful. People with peculiar skills tended to have similarly peculiar personalities, from their experiences. While Tooth kept an enormous bird enclosure, Rapunzel just had the one small reptile. North hand-painted a vast collection of Russian nesting dolls, but she apparently just painted more colorful versions of plants, animals, and other things you could find from any window view. Hell, she was more laid back than her "ordinary" cousin. If the pleasant people were the ones that had been stuck in one place their whole lives, what exactly did the real world do to people?


	10. Chapter 10

My laptop killed itself :)

* * *

The house was still and empty as he woke to the familiar sound of rain pattering on the roof, and a dragon breathing warm air onto his face. His father had probably already been out

attending to business for hours by then, none of this uncommon in their routine. No sooner than he was dressed did Jack call. Attempting to indicate that it was far too early for a conversation, or for Jack to be even conscious, he answered, "It's... morning."

"Do you undersell everyone you talk about? Am I getting lousy reviews from you too?"

Rubbing the sleep out of his face, Hiccup answered "Either you're making no sense or I'm not awake enough to talk right now."

"Tooth brought a friend called Rapunzel home yesterday."

"Congratulations, you've pronounced her name correctly."

"And she came over to your place last night?" Jack knowing about a casual family gathering without him ever mentioning it felt oddly intrusive. It made him wish Rapunzel wasn't as open, honest, and chatty as she was.

"Yeah, uh, she met Toothless and Gobber, then we all had dinner. She seems to have a high threshold for bizarreness, I think she already regards Gobber as another uncle."

"Yeah, Gobber's like another mom to you, everyone knows that. I just didn't expect someone like... _her_ to be related to you." Toothless pawed at the door, growling his desire to be let out. On the other side, the living room was glazed in gray morning light.

"Like what?"

"I mean, she _does_ seem like you. It's kind of weird to think of now. The same hair and nervous giggles. But she's a girl. And… actually very pretty." The feeling of a budding headache struck between his heavy, frowning eyes.

"Excuse me?"

"Okay, sorry. I didn't mean it like that, you're pretty too."

He cut in, "Don't call her pretty. Or me."

"You didn't mention her being powered."

"What, is that what you find interesting?"

Toothless' head tilted, as though he were carefully thinking, and trotted towards the front window. Normally he'd beg for breakfast, but Hiccup watched and let him be, trying to stretch a sore shoulder. "You know her powers are gone now, right?"  
"What I find interesting is that you didn't tell me."

If Jack knew he didn't tell him about the healing hair on purpose, Hiccup wouldn't know how to explain it. There was already too large a path to pave with her before taking that delicate subject into account, and although Jack was entirely in his right to be excited to meet someone else like him, Hiccup didn't want to be a bridge for his best friend to walk across to her. "It didn't come to mind. You were distracting me with gross jokes."

"We both do gross jokes. That's what we do."

"I respond to them out of acceptance that it's your main form of communication."

Behind the shutters, Toothless scratched at the window, suggesting that a bird or squirrel was playing outside. Then a dull thud and light scuffle was heard from the other side of the front door, and he realized it couldn't be such a small creature. "Something's on the porch…" he mumbled, just to himself.

Opening the door, his eyes glanced from the blank area in front of his face down to somebody toppled on the rain-soaked porch. Their hand pulled the hood and puffy red hair from their face. From the forgotten phone in his hand, he scarcely heard a tinny question, "Did you say something about a Porsche?"

He abandoned Jack's call and looked down at Merida in confusion, stammering "What - what are you…?"  
Noticing him for the first time, Merida sprang up onto her feet, nearly slipping again and said, "Shut it," She slammed something into his chest so that he barely caught it. "I wasn't here."

As if the exchange wasn't odd enough, it was the missing journal in his arms. Cool drops chilled his head and bare foot when he followed.

"And you're giving this back to me _why_?"

She turned halfway around and and shook her head, already halfway across the yard. "Cause it's yours, stupid."

"Why take it in the first place then?"

"You think I _stole_ it off you?" She scoffed. "Why would I go through the trouble for that junk?"

"You're going through the trouble of bringing it to my house in the rain."

"I was _hoping_ I'd just stick in the letter box without having to see your face again, but seems I was mistaken."

From behind him, Toothless noticed a new voice and hurtled out of the doorway. Hiccup jumped out into the grass and pushed him back inside, urging him to stay put.

"He's missing a tailfin, isn't he? You match. Cute." Her tone indicated that she did not, in fact, find this cute.

"I think the word you're looking for is coincidental."

From a crooked smile came her flippant reply, "Think the word _you're_ looking for is 'thanks'."

In a voice quiet, yet heavy in contempt, he offered, "Thanks for the notebook. Thanks a lot."

"And you should try not to drag your hand over your writing. Ts'a leftie thing, I know, but makes it pretty hard to read." Her prideful grin sent him reeling to shut the door behind him as quickly as possible.

Distraught already, on an otherwise fairly peaceful morning, he grumbled all the way back into his room and threw the now tainted notebook onto the bed. Toothless resisted checking out the new scent and stood beside his friend, cautious and gentle around the newfound tension. Outstretching a hand to stroke his head, and another to wildly gesture to the empty room, Hiccup muttered, "I knew she took it. I knew it! And I knew she'd read it too, I told you that." The dragon cooed in compassionate reply. The air seemed to cool, they sat upon the bed, and Hiccup returned to groggy confusion.. "Should I write down her stats in here too, buddy? No known fangs, talons, or venom, but raging nonetheless. I'll just stick her in Mystery class. Because, well, who knows what her problem is?"

At least a dragon could be reasoned with, understood, tamed. Where there was no fight before, she found one. The very worst part is that he still fell right into the same trap. He sighed once more and added, "Favored tactic: run victims into a fit of insanity..."

Another call rang from his pocket. Suddenly remembering the conversation from just minutes before, he tried to answer. Instead of a call back from Jack, an 8:15 alarm told him that absurdity never sleeps.


	11. Chapter 11

I live. I also don't know anything about cars and honestly hate them. I felt like I should include a special somebody else in this mishmash universe.

* * *

When she had invited Merida to walk home with them, she forgot that Hiccup was standing next to her. Mer didn't respond immediately, but then walked beside Astrid, and they started on their way. That feud had to have begun to bore her too, Astrid thought. It was baseless, only burning on because somebody always threw more kindling on a tiny spark. At the very least, Merida knew that staying behind to avoid somebody that lived on the same street as her was petty to the point of lunacy and didn't opt to stand around in the parking lot for 20 minutes. Thus, she walked on Astrid's right, opposite of him.

"I might not see you tomorrow morning," Merida told her as they crossed a street. "I think I'll skip gym."

"What for? You're only going to get yourself into more trouble." Merida's lack of obedience skills bothered her, but she knew it would be no use trying to talk her out of it. She'd tried enough.

"To spare some suffering. I want this awful volleyball unit to be over already. I'd rather just be running the whole hour."

"It's not that bad. Volleyball is one of the better sports we get to play in class."

"It's the worst."

"You only think so because you haven't learned how to serve."

"I can't serve!" Merida's hands clenched into fists at the very mention of the word. "It's damn near impossible if you're under five-six, I swear."

"I'm five foot five!"

"Good on you," Merida gestured to the left, "I'm barely taller than him."

Hiccup almost laughed. "You are _not_ taller than me."

"I think I am."

He peered around Astrid at her. "Your hair doesn't count."

Astrid prepared for another pointless argument.

A discordant horn blared behind them, causing Hiccup to flinch and Merida to curse. Astrid turned around with tensed shoulders, ready to shout, but instead smiled when she saw who was at the wheel. It was Heather that had startled them with a troublesome smirk.

Astrid stepped over to her, too excited to conceal it. "Oh my god! What are you doing here?"

"Cruising around," she answered, "We moved close to the falls, and I thought I might run into you here."

Hiccup followed on her left. "Is this car _yours_?" he asked. It was silver, not extravagant, but well worth a second glance. Its simple yet streamlined frame said _fast_, and Heather at its wheel said _faster_.

"You should have seen it before I got my hands on it. Practically junk. But I had it done by the time I got my license."

Astrid realized Merida was still behind them, and tried not to show that she had forgotten. She pulled her closer by the arm and told her, "Merida, this is our old friend Heather."

Merida didn't say anything. Before acknowledging her, Heather chided Astrid, "Have I really been gone long enough to be an 'old friend'?"

It really had only been a few months, and they kept in touch at that. Introducing Merida to someone so familiar felt odd and unreal without thinking of them as somebody of the past, but Merida countered without a beat, "Old enough that I've never heard of you."

A beat of silence passed before Astrid made herself laugh, mainly to tell everybody that wasn't a threat, but also out of secondhand embarrassment as her new friend put her foot into her mouth, yet again. Not an hour went by that she didn't. When Heather's surprised expression fell back into a smile, the situation was in the clear. "I like you."

Hiccup mumbled, "Who doesn't?" to himself, just faintly enough that the others wouldn't hear, but accidentally clear enough for Astrid. Merida, though, smiled back when asked for her name again.

Once Heather parked and left her car to walk with them, there was a second, blessed buffer between Astrid's equally tall, yet inharmonious friends. She explained how long she'd been waiting to finish moving and see them. "I have my own dragon now, you know," she mentioned, "And I think Stormfly and Windshear would get along well." When she started on how they had met, the group reached Astrid's home.

"I think Stormfly will be excited to see just you," Astrid said.

On their way up the walk, followed and asked, "Is it cool if I come with?"

He was going to keep talking, but Astrid answered with hardly a thought,"Yeah, sure."

She waved to Merida, who simply looked back before continuing on her way home. Astrid shut the door behind her and was immediately paid an apology by Hiccup.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to invite myself, but I just can't walk alone with her."

Astrid groaned, "God, Hiccup, are you serious? It wouldn't kill you." She had to remember how sensitive he was, though, or else this would be downright childish behavior in her eyes. "Look, I would've invited you in anyways, but you have to get over this thing." He nodded, knowing she was right, but she still couldn't expect any big change soon.

"There's a 'thing'?" Heather smirked in interest. "A thing for Merida?"

"A thing _against _her," he corrected, looking disturbed.

"A fear of her, really," Astrid concluded.

"I'm not scared of her. I'm... cautious."

"The guy that lost his foot climbing up a burning tree to save his dragon _would_ be cautious of a girl," Heather said, laughing.

"Toothless was my friend," Hiccup affirmed. He pointed toward the street. "She is not. She isn't just some girl either, she's…" He grimaced. "Her."

Heather could tell now that he was serious."Huh, you really hate her. What did she do?"

"She missed," Astrid curtly answered for him.

"Missed what?"

"My head," he mumbled.

Astrid took her answer back. "Her shot. She was practicing archery, missed a shot, and the arrow scared him."

"You weren't there. Only she and I were. Therefore, my word is as good as hers, therefore, I have every right to say it landed right at my feet." He shook his head, unsure."Foot?"

"That's it?" Heather asked.

"That," he dramaticized, "was only the beginning."

Just as she felt she couldn't stand hearing any more about it, Astrid noticed the amused look in Heather's eye and let him go on into his story. It was every bit as inaccurate as she was sure Merida's version was as well, though they both probably believed she had picked the other's side. Weeks after the fact, none of it seemed of the least importance anymore.

"Why start an argument in the first place?" Heather asked.

"You can't bring a machete into a library. You can't whip out throwing stars in math class." He enunciated his final point, "You cannot fire an arrow in unmarked woods."

"And everything since, up to and including refusing to walk next to her for 200 feet, is result of an argument over bow control," Astrid summarized in annoyance.

"More importantly," she continued, focusing on Heather again, "Tell me more about this dragon."

Photos showed that Windshear was just as fierce as her own, well trained dragon. Her scales appeared like glimmering silver steel ("That may or may not be why I chose that color for the car," Heather said), her eyes glowed green, and she was said to be as playful as she was skilled. Secretly, they both knew that Sharp class dragons were superior. Mentioning that to any of their friends could incite a riot.

Every time she was with Heather, Astrid felt she had become more fascinating and felt a bit jealous of the people that got to see her every day, not whenever a visit was convenient. Often she wondered if or when their paths would cross again. It would be enough, she conceded, to at least stay distant friends with her. It just never felt like enough. Soon, though, Stormfly would meet a new friend.


	12. Chapter 12

This week is two years since I first posted this fic. It's been slow-going, but I want to really pick up, so I'm writing more often than ever before. This one is very short, but I wanted to provide some development and analysis on Rapunzel to give others a break. I plan on posting a (much longer and plot-relevant) chapter later this week, so please check back! As I always intend but rarely say, thanks for reading.

* * *

It took very little time to notice that most people over 18 were moving away from their parents, attending higher education, or at least working. Even though she was free to roam as she pleased, the sense of childish dependency felt dreadful. She didn't feel trapped, but rather… useless. Amid the celebration, joyful tears, and about 15 years worth of stories, Rapunzel watched her parents alter each bit of their everyday lives around their new arrival. Touching as it was, the fuss must have caused extra stress, and they weren't as young as they once were.

So, she was weeding. Sun on the skin healed what her hair never could, and she would _not_ be idle. This had to be her favorite chore, because it was so new. Soft, cool earth ran between her fingers when reaching for tough roots and settled around her nailbeds. That was not to be desired and could be solved by wearing gloves, she knew, but the fascinating sensation was too much to give up. Besides, she never loved the way her hands looked more than when they had been dusted in soil. She smiled down at them.

"You've been out here all day, haven't you?" Her mother's voice drifted from behind her, bringing with it a gentle breeze.

Rapunzel turned to smile at her. "Hardly. I was cleaning the kitchen an hour ago." And that was only _after _sweeping, cleaning her own room again, and some polishing.

"That was before the day had even started, early bird." She knelt beside her and observed, "So _you're_ the reason I never have any housework to do anymore."

"I'm just..." She nearly slipped up and said _"Used to it,"_ but knew that what she was used to was no good. "Doing my own part," Rapunzel said, resuming her work. "You've had plenty extra to deal with since I showed up."

"Showed up?" Her mother laughed. "This is your home."

"You teach me, give me food, give me clothes... You guys give me so much that I don't know how to - to give back." She finished with a weak smile.

"That's just what parents are supposed to do, Rapunzel."

Rapunzel tried not to show how little she knew about how parents were _supposed_ to be. All that she really knew was that she wasn't used to it yet.

"I know, I just don't want to cause a fuss every time you see me."

Sweet as ever, but stronger than usual, her mother told her, "Dear, you should know we've been waiting to see you for a very long time. Not a moment that you're here makes life harder. It's all that we could have dreamed for and more."

Her hands stopped and returned from under the dirt. What could she say? Could that even be true? How could someone she never knew have loved her enough to want to give her everything? Rapunzel looked to her mother's eyes, the green matching her own. Whenever she forgot who her real family was, that was usually all it took to remember.

"Rapunzel," her mother reminded her, taking her dirty hands into soothing ones, "You don't have to give us anything. You're all we wanted."


	13. Chapter 13

This… wasn't exactly how I thought this scene would work out… with an argument over the Virgin Mary's virginity… yet here we are. I _definitely_ didn't put this off until the last minute like everything else I do or anything. This is still probably the most I've posted here in just one month, anyways.

* * *

Outside, away from expectation, the group of friends (but really, acquaintances) made basically out of consequence rather than compatibility loosely gathered, again, annoying the one that annoyed Merida most. He was the one to interject in the conversation she was sharing with Astrid only, mind him, that didn't require a third opinion.

"Have you ever noticed how they start arguments over literally nothing?" Astrid asked of Fishlegs.

"It would be funnier if it were about nothing," Tuffnut complained, "It's just always dumb stuff now."

The 'dumb stuff', today, wasn't exactly a battle of faith, if she were being honest with herself. Out of anybody in her family, she was most indignant towards their visits to church over the years. However, she was more indignant towards his mocking speech, so she defended the old tales about walkable water and food replication when he compared them to magician's tricks.

"You have a carnivorous pet that hasn't eaten you in your sleep yet. I'd think you were the type of person that would believe in miracles." That got a few of them to laugh.

"No," Astrid shook her head and declared, "We are not holding a religious debate."

"It's not a religious debate. She's allowed to believe in God and that Jesus was his prophet, even reincarnation," he said with a smile, and no jurisdiction over what she was 'allowed' to do, "But it's outright ignorant to believe that he... for example, was conceived immaculately."

On the higher ground, she challenged him, "What do you mean by that?"

The sneer in his response nearly made her punch him before he had finished saying, "I do hope you know where babies come from."

"They come from women," she firmly answered.

"Not spontaneously."

"Don't treat me like I'm stupid." The pull of Astrid's hand alerted her that she was now standing, but she didn't back down. "I'm aware. I'd just think the creator of the universe might be able to break their own rules now and again."

He never flinched. "Thinking isn't knowing."

"You weren't... there! You don't know either!"

Somebody said her name and was ignored.

"Human reproduction hasn't changed much in the last two thousand years," he insisted.

"So?" She narrowed her eyes. "I know you, I've seen your father. If genetics are consistent, you should look something alike."

Snotlout hollered in amusement, Astrid told him to shut up, and Hiccup just rolled his eyes.

"Right, he can't possibly be my father. I must be a miracle child of the Holy Spirit."

That final remark left her without restraint. "Or maybe it wasn't Jesus' mother that was an infidel."

He rose, so abrupt that Fishlegs jumped, and met her eyes in a fearless stare that she was surprised to find awakening a cautious chill over her skin. Although neither moved, their position was the most threatening stance either of them had taken in front of the other. In a matter of seconds, she found herself stumbling from her lead in a chaotic game. He wasn't planning to apologize for anything.

Merida's name was repeated, and all but shouted, by Astrid. Her eyes had never looked quite so unapproving. A look around revealed similar glares. Just a moment ago, Snotlout's scowl was a smile, and the twins were laughing, not wincing. Fishlegs, whom had shrunk down into a still huge form at the start of the argument, was the only one that seemed to up in bravery and move. His hand glanced against Hiccup's arm with an impossibly gentle touch, stirring her opponent.

"I'm just… getting up to leave," he mumbled, before doing just that. The silent Fishlegs followed ten steps behind him. Then a rare, bashful version of Snotlout. At some point before him, Astrid had fled without a sound. By the time Merida thought to ask, "What did I do?", only Ruffnut stood before her, gazing in apparent awe.

"You lost it."

A warning bell sounded and sent her after her twin. Merida, though, made no sudden movement.

Stepping into the next class a few minutes late was nothing she wasn't used to, but typically she never felt this disoriented, so the unamused gaze from their instructor (she still hadn't committed his name to memory) embarassed her for once. Upon seeing the rest of the class, though, nobody else was looking her way. The only one that ever had, most of the time in caution, was doing his best to ignore her now.

Fishlegs constantly whispering to his friend, though, kept drawing her attention. Hiccup seemed to wave him off, like he had earlier. She heard several fragments of Fishlegs' hardly lowered murmuring.

_"Did you see Astrid?",_ answered only with a single nod of the head.

_"At least she knows she's mean now, right?",_ answered with a shush, which was acknowledged with another famously unimpressed gaze from the instructor.

Merida had barely paid attention to Astrid leaving them behind, but now wondered about it. She became more irritated every time Hiccup started something, but this time it seemed that her own words were what sent her off. Nobody was alright with anything rude said to Hiccup, all of a sudden, that much was clear. It was obvious that half of what she said was either a joke or exaggeration anyways. She didn't know or have any opinion on his mother, but they all acted like they didn't realize that, even him.

The hands of the clocks in every room ticked on forward, the whole hour, then all day.

Even him.

Only when she made that last comment, something set him off, and everybody else knew it. Something she didn't know was on display in the mind of everyone she had met here, and they didn't seem to plan on telling her what it was. Why?

What makes them think I'm mad? What am I missing? And why is it my fault?

The questions were agonizing, and turned back to the one asked before, What did I do?

Even though she had no answers, she knew Astrid, and everyone else, would expect her to. Now even _they_ might hate her. Even if they didn't, a bridge had to be rebuilt, and she had to be much more careful crossing it. The next few hours of classes, she might as well have disappeared, because her headache blurred up any thoughts now that she knew what she needed to do next.

Classes ended, and hallways emptied onto the outdoor blacktop. She found him unwinding a bike lock from the rack on the South entrance. It would be like tearing off a bandage, she thought, just a few seconds to dread. On second thought, it seemed more like swallowing a bug. It wouldn't actually hurt, just make her cringe badly for a minute and a once again whenever remembering it. Apology never came easily, and this would be the worst ever. With a deep breath, she forced herself to walk forward.

Hiccup didn't look up as she approached or when she stopped beside him. It was up to her to start the interaction, unfortunately. On the bright side, he wouldn't notice that she couldn't stand to look at him while saying, "I didn't mean any of that from earlier." When her tone started out sounding bold, she tightened her jaw to make her voice neutral. "About your mum, I mean. If that's what made you angry."

He still didn't make any move to suggest he was listening, only put away the lock and pulled the bike out of the rack.

"I'm just telling you I wasn't being bold or nothing. Didn't know I was crossing a line."

Still, all Hiccup would afford her was a blank glance or two as he wiped dew off of the seat and started walking away.

The ease with which he ignored Merida threw her sense of balance off. Most people would pay more attention to random passerby, and this was obviously out of pettiness, despite her attempt to apologize. She reset her composure and let the steel back into her words. "You can't possibly be that cross with me." Still, no response came as he reached the curb. Quickly she caught up to him and stepped into his way. "You'll not say a single word?"

At last, he let his irritation took over and spoke, "That's what we were supposed to do, wasn't it?"

There was breath, but no words ready for her to use.

He was firm in asking, "Remember agreeing to stop talking to each other? That's what I'm doing. I'm not talking to you, and I'm walking away." He started to move around her.

"I told you, I'm not starting anything." Trying to sound calm wasn't working as well as hoped, but that didn't matter if nobody was listening. "Today was stupid, let's forget about it."

She meant to say sorry, though the word disgusted her, before he glared back looking like she must have been tricking him into something.

"I don't think you understood me. I don't want anything to do with you. Keep talking to my friends, that's fine. Just… please pretend that we never met, forget that I exist, or if you want, consider this the point at which I died," he requested indifferently, "Find another person to drive crazy. I have enough to deal with already. We're done doing this." He mounted the bike and sat still for a moment.

Now that she had a moment to speak, there was still nothing to say. Even if there was, he wouldn't let her finish. Besides, he only stayed to say one more thing.

"You didn't cross a line today. You crossed it the first time we spoke. I'm headed back to the other side now. Don't wait up." He set onto the road.

A dry wind swept against her face and caused her to blink. Only now that she had been left behind did she feel oddly alone, even more than earlier. Astrid was inside, but she couldn't talk to her now. Nobody was waiting for her to come home. The oddball had even told her off. It became starkly apparent, at that moment, there was absolutely no one that would listen anymore. None of them had ever wanted to in the first place.

Who cared? She felt foolish for ever trying to stay on anyone's good side.


End file.
